1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for managing cellular telephone accounts and bills.
2. Background of the Invention
Today many companies require employees to review paper statements, highlight personal calls, and submit a check to reimburse the company for personal calls made.
Many other companies manually audit, retrospectively, the call history of their employees to determine a percentage of the total phone bill attributable to personal calls and business calls. These companies often then set this percentage, applying it to a current month even if it is not accurate for that current month. This system often is inaccurate. For example, if the company applies a fixed percentage of a current month's bill (determined by analyzing the employee prior bills, such as the last three month's bills) as personal, and thus owed by the employee, but this month the employee made many fewer personal calls than during the last three months, the percentage set by the company will be too high. Thus, the company will be requiring the employee to pay more of the bill than it should.
To aid companies in their analysis of employee phone bills, many cell phone carriers provide data and related software to companies, usually on computer disc. This data and software allows a company to “cut and slice” certain phone calls made by an employee, so long as the calls were made on the phone services provided by the particular carrier.
Many of these carriers, however, do not provide such data and software to smaller companies.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for better tools and management techniques for controlling and monitoring employee cellular telephone usage on an employer-supplied telephone.